March 2022
Dr. Vishal Gaikwad, Mr. Mandar Joshi, Ms. Nupur Gandhe, Ms. Kanak Jaiswal
Innovation is considered the main driver of economic growth. Innovations benefit consumers, entrepreneurs and society and make them better off at large. Joseph Schumpeter, who is considered a champion of ‘Theory of Innovation’ (Dorfman, 1991), listed five major forms of innovations: “(1) The introduction of a new good… or of a new quality of good. (2) The introduction of a new method of production…(3) The opening of a new market… whether or not this market has existed before. (4) The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists… (5) The carrying out of the new organization of any industry…” (Schumpeter, 1934). Though Schumpeter discussed his ‘Theory of Innovation’ keeping capitalistic entrepreneurs in mind. Innovation is important for organizations and businesses as it gives them an edge in penetrating markets fasters and provides a better connection to markets which can lead to bigger opportunities. In any organization following processes are used a) Delivery process of product/services b) hierarchy/information flows between entities c) parallel/sequential patterns of activities and d) feedback and reinforcement. Organizations required better coordination and integration of these processes. Therefore innovative ideas and methods, which are nothing but something new or different ideas and methods, were used to achieve better coordination and integrations for better products and services. The world has changed significantly since the theory of innovation was proposed. Today, not only are we talking about innovation but we are also talking about social innovation; though in 1960 Peter Drucker and Michael Young in their writings discussed social innovation. Today social innovation and social entrepreneurship are gaining a lot of traction. The distinction between innovation and social innovation is fluid and there is often overlap between these two. There are many definitions of social innovation but there is hardly any consensus in the academic field (Amanatidou, Gagliardi, & Cox, 2018; Edwards- Schachter & Wallace, 2017; Howaldt, Butzin, Domanski, & Kaletka, 2014; Howaldt & Hochgerner, 2018; Van der Have & Rubalcaba, 2016). A widely cited definition of social innovation is: ‘Social innovation is a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals’ (Phills, Deiglmeier, & Miller, 2008, p.39). In this definition, ‘social’ is mainly equated with ‘improvement’. Social innovation is driven by the welfare need. Social innovation is highly contingent and contextually sensitive. In India, social innovation has emerged to address a combination of minimalist state welfare structure and growing welfare failure (Nicholls A. et al, 2015). Social Innovation offers a space for research. In this paper, we have studied social innovations and social entrepreneurs. This paper draws on the finding from the forty-four social innovation start-ups based in eight different states. Our objective is to asses the effects of social innovation. We aim to address the questions like to what extent can social innovation start-up benefit the society; how does this innovation arise in terms of role, organization, the problems faced by these social innovation start-ups, and their future goals.
The research for this project involved the selection of social innovation start-ups that benefitted from the program ‘Social Innovation Lab’ run by Pune International Centre (PIC). Detailed semi-structured interviews were carried out with key stakeholders who were paid staff, and founders.